Legend of Korra "The Aftermath" Talkback

[Grumman]

If she did kill him, it inadvertently means that the "Good guys" are the only ones with a body count so far. The lack of violence during a so called revolution (and earlier the war) is something that's always bugged me about Avatar. You know if this series were on any other channel, Amon would be doing more than just de-powering benders.

Then those other channels would be missing the point. Amon is waging a propaganda war. De-powering a bender is more effective in achieving his goals than simply killing them, because it lets him paint himself as the better man - in the face of "bender oppression" he merely bringing the worst of them down to normal, like a parent taking a toy away from their ill-behaved child. In return, the bender elite has attacked him for fighting crime.

[Sarevok]

Depowering a bender is much worse threat to them psychologically than killing them. They would rather risk getting killed than permanently losing their powers. Even Avatars who have no fear of putting their lives on the line are shaken to their core. Korra would not have such a mental breakdown if Amon was merely trying to kill her like Ozai or every other enemy that faced an Avatar.

[Darksider]

Are you saying that nobody died in all those crashed police blimps ?

oh yeah. I forgot about those.

[Ford Prefect]

Her blades had even had something that looked like blood them.

They didn't.

[Guardsman Bass]

I'd have to watch it again, but I doubt they have blood on them either. This is a "TV-Y7" rated show.

[avatarxprime]

Why didn't the Metal-bender use the ground to their advantage.
Sato himself told them the door and the mecha-tanks are bender-proof.
But they were obviously able to bend the surface they stood on.

Metal bending is a very specialized form of Earth bending, which brings up two questions:
How much of their training in general Earth bending was sacrificed to train them in metal bending ?
How much of their earth bending skills have atrophied through lack of use ?

I'd imagine none at all. From what we saw of Toph figuring out metalbending, you need Earthsight to actually perform the skill. Earthsight is a high end earth bending ability, so it stands to reason that all metalbenders are expert earthbenders. It's more likely that because of the sheer power of a metalbender they've all become rather complacent. When Lin went down to a surprise attack in the previous episode I guessed that because of her full metal armor she didn't have the ability to use earthsight, and I was right. To use it here, she needed to retract the covering on her foot, it's a lot more likely that metalbenders just don't see the point in earthbending most times when their metal is usually better.

Her blades had even had something that looked like blood them.

They didn't.

I watched it again, I didn't see anything on her blades.

[Ford Prefect]

Look, the reality is that they were making concessions to Sato to play up the threat of his robots. Any halfway decent Earthbender could probably wreck the shit out of the mecha-tanks with a minimum of fuss, but if that happened the first time they showed up, the danger posed by the Equalists is discredited. This is the first time the threat of the Equalists was presented in a particularly lazy way, but it happened. Let's just accept it was a narrative device and just move on, as opposed to making clumsy after the fact rationalisations. Remember, the heroes this time around are not a plucky gang facing off against a whole empire. Korra is in a position of structural power superiority to the Equalists: she lives with and trains under a world leader, is tight with the city's government, works with the police force, is ostensibly protected and supported by the White Lotus, the Avatar is no longer an outlaw etc.

It's important to make the Equalists credible and dangerous, otherwise Korra stops being the underdog.

[MrDakka]

I was wondering if the MetalBenders were "blinded" by their own talent. The floor was stone/earth, and obviously could be bended. The Mecha rolled forward on treads. Instead of trying to use their metal wires to bind (like they would a normal prisoner), the MetalBenders should have toppled the Mecha via Earth-bending a ramp, or just a pillar under one tread. Or opened a sinkhole under it.

Its obvious that they need to review their fundamentals, or recruit some Dai Li agents Hopefully, we'll see some solid Earthbending action in the future.

He also took Aang's "airball" technique and made a Wheel out of it, which gae him great maneuverabilty, and looked really good.

I loved this part.

[NoDot]

Earthsight is a high end earth bending ability,

It is?

No, I'm not buying "We only saw Toph and Aang use it!" as a valid argument. One of those two was the one who discovered it, and she wasn't spreading it far and wide (during the series). We have no data on how easy it actually is to learn for average benders.

And given the mook-like treatment of the Metalbenders, it's looking like it really isn't.

[Sarevok]

Maybe the Metalbenders are not so good at Earthbending because of all the armor they wear. They wear boots on their feet when Earthbending benifits from having direct contact with the ground.

[Imperial Overlord]

The metal benders are cops, not soldiers. The moves they train to use, and which are their go to moves in a fight, are things like tying people up in chains and rapid response repelling down from zepplins, not lifting huge chunks of stone from the ground and crushing people to paste with them. And if the metal benders do start training in more brute force techniques as opposed to being capture focused, then we'll have a more violent, paramilitary police force under the influence of an ambitious, power hungry politician in a pseudo 1930s society and as we all know, nothing can go wrong with that.

[Sarevok]

You have to a good earthbender in order to metalbend though. And in the base they were fighting there was no chance for collateral damage. I think the old fashioned Dai Li would have handled the fight much better.

[Majin Gojira]

Maybe the Metalbenders are not so good at Earthbending because of all the armor they wear. They wear boots on their feet when Earthbending benifits from having direct contact with the ground.

I noticed that to do the Blindsight trick, Cheif Bei Fong had to lift the metal soul of her boot up, so that theory may be sound and it was established earlier that metal cut off contact from elements like earth in a season 1 episode.

[Zor]

Also, I am seeing Asami becoming the Gadgeteer of Team Korra. The one who knows stuff about technology.

zor

[JME2]

Also, I am seeing Asami becoming the Gadgeteer of Team Korra. The one who knows stuff about technology.

zor

She's also the outsider and non-bender, further cementing her as Sokka's successor as "The Ideas Guy".

[avatarxprime]

Earthsight is a high end earth bending ability,

It is?

No, I'm not buying "We only saw Toph and Aang use it!" as a valid argument. One of those two was the one who discovered it, and she wasn't spreading it far and wide (during the series). We have no data on how easy it actually is to learn for average benders.

Toph at most "rediscovered" that technique. Badgermoles used it first, and the first Earthbenders learned it from them. Although we don't know if Oma and Shu used earthsight (apparently the official name is "seismic sight" but I really don't like that name), we do know that the only other character (Toph) acknowledged as having picked it up from the original source did learn the technique. Given the way Firebending has drifted away from the source material as it were (as shown by the episode with the Sun Warriors and the Dragons), it's highly likely that the same thing happened with Earthbending given the sheer size of the Earth Kingdom and its population. It's still an effective technique, but it has lost much of the original scope of the bending art that the animal they first learned the skill from displayed. Contrast this with Airbenders who live with the Sky Bison or the Water Tribe, where they continue to live with the physical embodiment of the Spirits that taught them how to bend. So, since they were all being taught, but no one (not even skilled benders like Master Yu, the 5 Earth Generals, the Dai Li [who were taught by Avatar Kyoshi], or Xin Fu) ever happened to display the technique except for Toph, I'd say it's either highly exotic and something you normally wouldn't develop (unlikely given high-end Earthbenders' ability to "swim" through earth) or something that is difficult to develop and generally ignored since most Earthbenders can see.

And given the mook-like treatment of the Metalbenders, it's looking like it really isn't.

Imperial Overlord already gave a good response to this, the metalbending cops aren't mooks, they're cops and as cops they don't go for the kill, they go for the capture. Let's also keep in mind the only way we've seen them go down is when electrocuted, which just so happens to work against all benders and non-benders alike.

Maybe the Metalbenders are not so good at Earthbending because of all the armor they wear. They wear boots on their feet when Earthbending benifits from having direct contact with the ground.

I noticed that to do the Blindsight trick, Cheif Bei Fong had to lift the metal soul of her boot up, so that theory may be sound and it was established earlier that metal cut off contact from elements like earth in a season 1 episode.

Yeah, I commented on that bit about Lin a couple posts up. I figured their armor blocked earthsight since Lin got surprise attacked in the previous episode, something that would have never happened to her Mom. As to the limits of Metalbending, a certain amount of continous contact seems to be needed. Toph could wear full metal armor and still manipulate metal on the airships during the finale, but it's possible this would be at the expense of Earthbending as she would no longer be connected to it, but was connected metal to metal. Perhaps the small traces of earth left in most metals are unable to conduct the earthsight waves beyond their surface? When Toph was "meditating" on her metal container and first developed Metalbending she couldn't see beyond the metal, the waves of her sight just kept flowing around the shape of the metal container.

[Grumman]

Let's also keep in mind the only way we've seen them go down is when electrocuted, which just so happens to work against all benders and non-benders alike.

It doesn't work too well against firebenders.

[MrDakka]

Let's also keep in mind the only way we've seen them go down is when electrocuted, which just so happens to work against all benders and non-benders alike.

Just some food for thought: do you guys think that the lightning redirection technique that Iroh developed would work against those electric gloves and stun batons?

I personally don't, since it seems like that move requires the movement of the arms to channel the lightning/electricity.

[Sarevok]

I don't get the point of electric gloves really. If you can poke them with one you can stab them with a sword instead.

[Murazor]

I don't get the point of electric gloves really. If you can poke them with one you can stab them with a sword instead.

Watsonian answer: Republic City's elite law enforcement forces wear metal armor. This makes the electro-gloves a better weapon than swords against the metal-benders.

Doylist answer: Kids show. If the Equalists were to pack clearly deadly weapons, rather than non-lethal zap-gloves said clearly deadly weapons wouldn't be used because of executive meddling.

[The Nomad]

Actually the zap gloves seem to have a bit of range, unless I'm mistaken.

[Sarevok]

Right. The ability to zap armored metalbenders make sense.

[FaxModem1]

First off, Pobu was the best thing about this episode, he's just so cute.

Second, good to see Asami's character fleshed out, as before, she seemed just someone who was introduced to be rival to Korra to Mako.

Now, onto the episode itself. The cabbage corp joke was gold. I wonder, did Future Enterprises actually lose anything from this? If anything, the Metal Benders had to retreat from this, and lost people. Does the task force have the capability to storm the mansion? Or are they going to have to know that Sato is producing weapons of war for the Equalists there and can't fight them?

[Bright]

I don't get the point of electric gloves really. If you can poke them with one you can stab them with a sword instead.

Amon doesn't want the Equalists to come across as killers to the general populace. The more monstrous his methods, the more support he would lose - at least at this stage.

(Is this the right topic? Whew, looks like.)

[Sarevok]

I wonder what kind of weapon technology exists in general. They don't have guns so what do the armies fight with ?The non benders of previous eras used various medieval weaponry like swords,spears,bows etc. Going with the 1920s theme what could they use in place of guns ?